Due to current conditions with the COVID-19 outbreak, we are postponing our Roland Paris Departmental Speaker event on Monday, April 6, 2020 — we will reschedule this event for a date TBD.
For information on how UBC continues to monitor the development of the situation, including resources, click here.
You are invited to attend a Departmental Talk by Roland Paris, Professor of International Affairs in the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Ottawa.
Roland Paris brings his experience in international security, peacebuilding, and foreign policy to answer the question: are we giving powerful states license to dominate?
Date: Monday, April 6, 2020
Time: 12:15 pm – 1:45 pm
Location: Buchanan Penthouse (Buchanan B500)
Title: The Right to Dominate: How Old Ideas about Sovereignty Pose New Challenges for World Order
Lunch will be served at 11:45 am
Please RSVP by Tuesday, March 31, 2020.
Abstract:
As authoritarian states and populist-nationalist democratic leaders seek to strengthen national controls over the flow of people, technology, goods, and ideas across borders, many observers have argued that we are witnessing the reassertion of Westphalian sovereignty in world politics. However, another recent trend has gone largely overlooked: the reappearance of older “organic” and “extralegal” depictions of sovereignty that pre-date the Westphalian version. This trend has potentially far-reaching implications for international order. Whereas Westphalian sovereignty emphasizes the legal equality of states and the principle of noninterference, the older versions offer few constraints on state action. If anything, they appear to license powerful states to dominate others.
More about Roland Paris:
Roland Paris is Professor of International Affairs in the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Ottawa, Associate Fellow of the Royal Institute of International Affairs (Chatham House), and former Senior Advisor to the Prime Minister of Canada on global affairs and defence.
Roland Paris’ research on international security, peacebuilding, and foreign policy has appeared in leading academic outlets and earned several prizes, including the Grawemeyer Award for Ideas Improving World Order. He sits on the editorial board of seven scholarly journals and has received four awards for teaching and three for public service.
Prof. Paris has taken several academic leaves to work in government. In addition to serving in the Prime Minister’s Office, he previously held positions in Canada’s Department of Foreign Affairs, Privy Council (cabinet) Office, and Federal-Provincial Relations Office. He also been the founding Director of the Centre for International Policy Studies at the University of Ottawa, Director of Research at the Conference Board of Canada, Assistant Professor of Political Science and International Affairs at the University of Colorado at Boulder, Visiting Researcher at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, DC, Visiting Fellow at the Institut d’études politiques (Sciences Po) in Paris, Global Ethics Fellow at the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs, a member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Future Council on Geopolitics.
He was appointed in 2014 to a group of international experts advising the Secretary General of NATO, and currently serves on the Advisory Council to the Deputy Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada. He also provides international-affairs analysis and commentary in national and international media.
Prof. Paris holds a Ph.D. from Yale University, an M.Phil. from the University of Cambridge, and a B.A. from the University of Toronto.
Roland Paris will also speak as the the 2020 Mark Zacher Distinguished Visitor on April 7.
